Beth Hart’s bio to this point in her 20-plus-year career is very nearly a blues cliché. A youthful beginning, doing great work while toiling in obscurity, struggling with alcohol and substances intended to keep her centered and grounded. It’s a boilerplate blues story, told many times with slight variations. Thankfully, Hart’s recent triumphs have counterbalanced her ancient travails. Last December, Hart took the stage at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, D.C., along with guitar icon Jeff Beck, and performed Etta James’ classic “I’d Rather Go Blind” to celebrate Kennedy Center honoree and blues legend Buddy Guy. Hart’s scorchingly soulful vocals and Beck’s sinewy guitar lines brought Guy and the audience to their feet; that performance has been added to the commercial pressing of Bang Bang Boom Boom (Provogue/Mascot), Hart’s powerfully diverse new album. Hart will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on her.
Hart: I remember being really little and my mom was giving me a bath. She told me that my older sister Sharon was leaving home to live on her own. I started to cry so hard because I felt sad for my mom having to let her daughter go. I looked deep into my mother’s eyes, and I promised her when I grew up that I’d never leave her. My mother, with the most loving tone of voice said, “Beth, one day a man will come into your life, and he will love you as much as I do, and you will go.” I thought to myself, “No! No! I will never leave Mama.” When I left home I was still very young, and unfortunately, I was attracted to real assholes. Every man I came across only hurt me, so I thought about what my mother said and chalked it up to wishful thinking. But you know what? She was right. He finally came. Scott is the greatest happiness I’ve ever known because I know in my guts that he really loves me. He’s saved my soul, my insides. He made me fall in love with living. He’s my husband. He’s my home.
